‘I didn’t notice.’

‘Yes, I could see you were shocked out of your skull, but when a death is involved there’s no way of putting it gently. We thought you had a right to know, considering you were in on this from the beginning.’

‘Hang about. Don’t make me into an accessory,’ Jo said. ‘Murder was never seriously discussed that night in Chicago Rock, and you know it. What we talked about was just a joke in very bad taste.’

‘Too right,’ Gemma said. ‘Pity Rick didn’t cotton on that we were joking.’

‘What are you saying now-that you weren’t part of it?’

‘I bear some responsibility; of course I do. I shouldn’t have floated the idea of killing Mr Cartwright, even for a laugh. But we both under-estimated Rick. Jo, he’s nuts.’

‘You’re changing your tune, aren’t you?’ Jo said. ‘Last night you were calling him some sort of genius.’

‘That’s true. I had to act up. To be honest, he scares me. I don’t know what he’d do if I told him I disapproved. Is that weak of me? I suppose it is. I’m worried sick.’

This was a turnaround, and Jo might have been impressed if Gemma had not been so two-faced. ‘Report him yourself, then.’

Gemma gaped at the suggestion. ‘Turn him in? I daren’t. He’d report me. And you, too, I reckon.’

She was hell-bent on spreading the guilt.

‘Haven’t I made clear that this has nothing to do with me?’ Jo said.

‘To me, but not to Rick. You and I know we were joking. He doesn’t. With his tunnel vision he’s convinced he was acting on our suggestions.’

This, at least, had a spark of truth. Rick had never understood the humour in plotting Mr Cartwright’s death. He took things literally. All he’d been able to contribute was the grisly story of the woman eaten by pigs. Jo recalled having to shut him up when he’d wanted to repeat it.

‘You say he scares you, but you told me last night you’d slept with him.’

‘I know.’ Gemma shook her head. ‘How dumb was that?’

‘It’s true, then?’

‘It was only a shag, Jo.’

‘But he’d just told you he was a murderer. How could you do it?’

‘You had to be there.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Really. I was, like, scared shitless when I realised what he was saying was true, that he’d topped Mr Cartwright. For real. I mean, it was the worst moment of my life. Terrifying. But then he goes, “I took the body to the paper mill and it’s gone without trace.” I was so relieved that I hugged him. Misery to joy in two seconds flat. Next thing we were ripping each other’s clothes off.’

This Jo could believe. The best sex she’d ever had was to make up after a bitter argument. ‘So you’re hoping no one will ever find out. Haven’t you thought that you’re an obvious suspect, working for Mr Cartwright, and being treated unfairly?’

‘There’s no corpse,’ Gemma said, folding her arms. ‘Nobody can say for sure what happened to him.’

‘That’s no guarantee. There have been cases of people being convicted without a body turning up.’

A pause. ‘You’re trying to scare me now.’

‘Gemma, I have no interest in scaring you. Why don’t you get a grip on reality?’

‘What, and run to the police? You haven’t, so why should I?’

‘That’s your decision.’

‘I won’t shop Rick.’

‘You still like him, don’t you?’

She plucked at the lobe of her ear. ‘He did all this for me, Jo.’

‘All this? A cold-blooded killing?’

‘He’s not cold-blooded with me.’

Amazing, Jo thought, what some women are willing to overlook in men who play around with them. ‘You don’t know how dangerous this is. I’m telling you now, I don’t want to be near him ever again.’

‘Your choice.’

‘Right-my choice, Gemma. And don’t come running to me when your choice gets ugly with you.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Gemma sighed, shrugged, and turned away as if she was hard done by.

But she’d got what she came for, Jo reckoned: the reassurance that nothing had been said to the police.

The birdbrain left without saying any more. To report to Rick, no doubt.

FIFTEEN

‘Are we all here now?’ Hen asked. Every space was taken in the incident room for Tuesday’s early-morning briefing, but she had a feeling someone was missing.

‘Ready to go, guv,’ Stella said without quite answering the question. She would always cover up for a colleague.

‘Let’s crack away, then. Most of you will know that the bouncer has been bounced out of here by his crafty solicitor. Am I bothered? No. We got enough out of Francisco to convince me he was a minor player. We’ll do him for car theft later.’ She paused, as if to draw a line under Francisco, then spoke in a slow, grave tone she rarely used. ‘But the killer remains at liberty and I’m increasingly concerned that someone else is going to die. At our last meeting, somebody-I think it was you, Paddy’-she made brief eye contact with Sergeant Murphy-‘suggested we might be dealing with a serial killer and I shot you down in flames because two similar murders doesn’t amount to a series.’

Murphy-not normally reticent-had the sense to nod and say nothing. The boss was leading up to something.

Her voice sounded taut. ‘Confession time. Paddy’s words are starting to haunt me. I can’t deny the risk that another drowning may happen, and it’s our duty to prevent it. There’s an intelligent brain behind these crimes, a cunning, cruel determination to dispose of the victims by a method almost unknown in serial killing. It’s cunning because a drowning leaves few traces of the perpetrator. And cruel because it’s a slow, agonizing death.’ She paused, and there was an extraordinary stillness in the room as each of the team imagined being held under water, fighting for breath, swallowing, struggling, becoming weaker and knowing this was certain death.

‘What’s so unusual,’ Hen continued, ‘is that the murderer has to find ingenious ways of getting his victims into water. Meredith Sentinel appears to have gone into the sea by choice, or by invitation. Fiona Halliday was fully dressed, so she must have been forced into the Mill Pond, but the bruising was all related to the drowning.’ She paused, then added almost as an afterthought, ‘Or maybe he doesn’t work like that at all. Pursuing this serial killing idea, the choice of victim may be unimportant. The killer may choose the place of execution and wait, spiderlike, for some hapless woman to come along.’

She took a moment for them to absorb the image. ‘I hope and pray it isn’t so random, because that will be hell to crack. I’m going to put even more pressure on you all to bring an end to this. I feel in my bones that we’re on a countdown and someone else is due to suffer if we can’t stop it.’ She put her hands to her face and patted her cheeks as if to restore the upbeat persona she usually presented to the world. ‘And so, Paddy… ’

‘Ma’am?’ DS Murphy had a told-you-so expression.

‘I asked you to check all the recent drownings in Sussex and Hampshire. What’s the picture?’

His face changed. He hadn’t expected to find himself centre stage. He cleared his throat, a sure indicator of loss of nerve. ‘I went over five years of records as you asked.’

‘And?’

‘Thirty-seven drownings, almost all of them accidental and more than half young children.’

‘Nothing homicidal?’

‘There was that Portsmouth millionaire who drowned his lover in their private pool, but he’s doing a life sentence for it. I looked at a couple of cases where open verdicts were returned, but no. In all honesty I couldn’t find anything similar to our drownings.’

‘A negative report, then?’

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